Category: everyday urbanism

should cities embrace ‘sandwich board urbanism’?

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, pedestrianism, placemaking, urban views9 Comments

Rethinking allowed uses in city rights-of-way can change the look and feel of streets in unexpected fashion—especially when the focus is on more than the ambiance of sidewalk cafes, benches or clocks. One example is the impact of sandwich board signs, something I first noticed last year when researching the key role of corners in reconsidering neighborhood spaces.

Sandwich board signage, also known as “A-frames”, can be easily traced to nineteenth century urban roots. Local businesses rely on them for advertising and wayfinding, although they often impede the pedestrian traffic around them, block sight lines, or distract the vehicular traffic passing by.

Like sidewalk cafes, sandwich boards are making a comeback. Often prohibited in the past, they are now permitted, but regulated in scope. In many cities, such as Aspen, Colorado, the approach replaces the outright prohibition with specific conditions in certain parts of the city:

Sandwich board signs are intended for special sales, the advertisement of unique menus or offerings at restaurant establishments, and for businesses that are difficult to locate. Only one (1) sandwich board sign is permitted per business and a permit must be obtained. The size is not to exceed six (6) square feet per side. These signs are only permitted for retail and restaurant businesses within the CC and C-1 zone districts. Restaurants may use one (1) sandwich board sign if it is located on adjacent private property. Additionally, sandwich board signs may be used continuously by those locations identified on the City of Aspen Sandwich Board Sign Location Map. Amendments to the map may be made administratively by the Community Development Director.

Elsewhere, such as Seattle, sign dimensions and locations are similarly prescribed, subject to street use permit application processes, location criteria and fees ($146 for the first year) largely administered by the City’s Department of Transportation.  Generally speaking, businesses are entitled to use them, but questions inevitably arise when the signs are placed at some distance from the business, or in a way that constricts safe passage.

As a lawyer interested in the “on the ground impact” of policy and regulation, in this case I find the picture of implementation more interesting and dynamic than the actual permit criteria.  With a return to a neighborhood base built around multi-modal street life, the images here show sandwich boards as both fascinating symptoms and emblems of the changing city.

Perhaps because of business necessity and the the simple, homespun nature of sandwich boards, users assume flexible placement of such signage is appropriate.  Recently, one Seattle blogger took to moving sandwich boards to the side of sidewalks, reporting those he suspected as illegal. He also expressed ironic concern over potential city liability for any case of trip and fall.

Whether compliant or not (see my earlier essay on the role of “shapes of avoidance” on the landscape), I think the real question is how more random, simple signage such as sandwich boards typifies the popular essence of today’s urbanism. When a sidewalk is “occupied” in a more minimal fashion, is a fee really appropriate? Other than standards assuring public safety, are there aesthetic risks which cities should manage?  In summary is this a market that should largely go unregulated?

If public safety can be assured by simple criteria governing location, timing, size and shape, I offer five criteria for why sandwich boards should stay:

1. Homespun simplicity sells.

2. Artisans need work and small businesses need affordable ways to shine.

3. Well done signs bring character to neighborhood.

4. Sandwich boards can supplement permitted façade signage and increase the prominence of a small business.

5. Perhaps most important, like other forms of pop-up urbanism, removal is an option.

In summary, we should foster and encourage quick fixes that innovate. If done right, aren’t sandwich boards one example that can literally show the way?

All images composed by the author.  Click on each image for more detail.

A similar version of this post first appeared in The Atlantic Cities.

considering rules of evidence for urbanism

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, placemaking3 Comments

Consider the images below of a north Seattle arterial, one from Google Street View, and the other from a personal, street-level photograph. Both images suggest a former residential area now used for small businesses. But are they equally reliable depictions?

Today’s post continues as an exclusive entry at Sustainable Cities Collective, “Writing About Cities: Courtroom Rules or Virtual Frontier?”. For the remainder, click here.

First image courtesy Google Street View. Second image composed by the author.

learning from the ‘High Line’ next door

On By Chuck WolfeIn everyday urbanism, infrastructure, pedestrianism, placemaking, sustainability6 Comments

An abandoned cable car bridge in Seattle (pictured here in multiple views) could carry the same message of reinvention as New York City’s celebrated High Line, the notable elevated railway-turned-park.

In “The Necessity for Ruins” (1980), landscape essayist J.B. Jackson explained that such leftover edifices often inspire us “to restore the world around us to something like its former beauty”.  I’ve often written of Jackson’s advocacy for the use of ruins—not for what we now call “urban exploration” of abandoned places—but to reclaim what worked before.

With Jackson in mind, I often look for walkable, bikeable and transit-oriented places, reminiscent of times gone by. Such places are already inherent in the evolving city around us—remnants of earlier land uses and infrastructure eerily similar to what pundits call for today. These leftovers merge with changing lifestyles, and illustrate firsthand Jackson’s championing of accessible, nostalgic vestiges of an urban past.

In Seattle’s Leschi neighborhood (as illustrated by these photos), the city of 2012 overlays the city of 1930.  As the use of automobiles increased, infrastructure, such as the former cable car bridge, went out of service. In 1940, the cable car line was abandoned and replaced by a bus line.

These images of Frink Park (a portion of the 1903 Olmsted park plan), are consistent with today’s urbanist ideals, and show the juxtaposition of the bridge, bicyclist and pedestrian.  On the old track-bed, a piece of the park now continues, and becomes a trail through the hillside woods above.

How would Jackson interpret the cable car remains? Have they been lost to time, or are they an example of the inspirational reminder which Jackson describes? 

I choose the Jackson view.

Nearby, today’s light rail is assuming the former role of the cable car.  The Sound Transit tracks proceed northward, as the buildout of the region’s light rail system continues. In the next decade, light rail will turn east as well, and cross Lake Washington, not far south of the cable car’s former terminus—a dock for a long discontinued trans-lake ferry.

As Jackson noted, “Ruins provide the incentive for restoration, and for a return to origins”.  So too, they give incentive for finding your own “High Line”, often just next door.

Initial image courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives. Remainder of images composed by the author. Click on each image for detail.

A similar version of this post first appeared in The Atlantic Cities.

using adaptive reuse to scale the urban future

On By Chuck WolfeIn compact development, everyday urbanism, infill development, lessons learned, placemaking, sustainability5 Comments

How will the city of tomorrow reflect adaptive reuse of the city of today?

I don’t think we ask that question broadly enough, and our day-to-day, property-specific incrementalism can easily overshoot the greatest lessons from history for today’s city politics, regulation and economic constraints.

A hometown case in point, last week, transported me from Seattle to Croatia for inspiration about why we should think beyond limited geographies, time frames and lifetimes when we discuss urban redevelopment options.

Today’s post continues as an exclusive entry at The Atlantic Cities, “What the History of Diocletian’s Palace Can Teach Us About Adaptive Reuse”.  For the remainder, click here.

Image credits: Comparative aerial photos from Wikipedia under a Creative Commons license.

selling the ideals of urbanism, 1948 and today

On By Chuck WolfeIn compact development, everyday urbanism, housing, infill development, placemaking, sustainability5 Comments

Many of us who write about cities like to share rediscovered videos from times gone by. The videos are especially notable when ideas with currency today are discussed in other contexts, providing opportunities to compare, contrast and sometimes be humbled by history.

Here is a prescient video from 1948, about “Charlie”. This cartoon protagonist champions the basics of the new town movement in post-war Great Britain—a Garden City-inspired effort intended to ease housing shortages. The first phases of the movement brought to the city planning lexicon names such as Stevenage, Crawley, Hemel-Hempstead, Harlow, Hatfield and Basildon (see Osborn and Whittick’s classic The New Towns (1963) for the full story).

An interesting tidbit: as the video explains, the “neighborhood centre” was a key premise of the British new towns—based on the guiding principles of the Reith Report as implemented through the New Towns Act of 1946.

Similar to then-contemporary American “neighborhood unit” principles, the new towns commonly featured structured neighborhoods of 5,000-10,000 inhabitants with at least one elementary school, local shops on two sides of a triangle or flanking a square with a church or public house.

What can we learn from the ever-optimistic Charlie (who ends the video on a bicycle)? Take a look at the video above, or review the script below, courtesy of the British National Archives:

Charlie: Our town was going to be a good place to work in, and a grand place to live in, with plenty of open spaces; parks, and playing fields where people could enjoy them, flower gardens, and of course there’d have to be an attractive town centre too, with plenty of room for folks to meet. Good shops, a posh theatre, cinemas, a concert hall, and a civic centre.

Chairman: We have to plan the residential area next. Let’s consider it as a series of neighbourhoods and take any one of them. Now – how shall we plan? Most important of all is the child. So we’ll need pedestrian routes for the pram-pusher. Nursery schools within 400 yards of every home. Primary schools within safe and easy reach. Each neighbourhood must have its own.

Voices: “Churches” “Community centre” “Shopping district” “And lots of pubs – right next door to me” (answer) “Oh no, you don’t.”

Chairman: Oh, there’ll be a pub quite near enough for you. And finally, we started on the houses. The site was planned for maximum sunshine and then everyone could take his choice.

Charlie: Detached houses – semi-detached – terraced houses. Flats for people who wanted them – hostels where the young folks could get together, and bungalows for the old ones.

And so we moved right in. I’m telling you – it works out fine; just you try it!

Modernize the script, and take away the industry-avoiding colonization of the hinterlands. Consider the neighborhood vision with jobs close to home. I would argue that the city neighborhoods sought by the creative class, multi-modal “Charlies” of today are nothing new, right down to the hoped-for micro-brew a short walk or bike ride away.

A similar version of this post first appeared in The Atlantic Cities.